Dark Waters (27 page)

‘Yes, of course. An exact copy, is what you said.'

‘And Uncle Egan's cancellation line?'

‘Yes, exact again.'

‘Could there have been one of these dots against Uncle Egan's name, which the line of ink concealed?'

Furzey thought for several seconds, studying the place where Antony Egan's name was inked out.

‘Of course there could. Anyone can see that by looking.'

‘So in the original, was there such a dot?'

Furzey picked up the copy of the list and handed it back to me.

‘How would I know?' he said. ‘Ink blots out ink. It was a thick line. You could see the tops and the bottoms of the letters, so you could read the name that was cancelled. But these dots are smaller than the width of the cancelling line, you see? So, if it had been there, it would've been totally blotted out.'

As I now walked briskly down the track that led to the Middleforth ferry, I was thinking about marked men. If a man found a list of men, with some of them marked, and then two or more of the marked men died in suspicious ways, the inference would be obvious. But I only had one dead man who was definitely marked; I had a second who was dead and might have been marked; and I had a third, Nick Oldswick, who was marked and might – just might – have been threatened with murder, but was not dead. I knew that if Oldswick turned up dead, or if Egan turned out to have been marked on Destercore's list, then I would have good reason to treat the list as material evidence in an inquest. But evidence of what? Murder, certainly. And likely as not a conspiracy to murder. And suspicion of such a conspiracy would probably land Destercore in the dock at the next assizes in Lancaster Castle, on trial for his life.

But it was all too woolly, with too much unknown. There was no certain need to consider Oldswick as a possible victim. His assailant lurking behind the abandoned cart in Friar Gate might have been an unconnected threat, or an exaggerated one, for the clockmaker's own fancies had always been a greater danger to him than other men. And what was the meaning of the marked men on the list? Yes, it was a tangle. I wished that Luke Fidelis were with me to help straighten it out.

*   *   *

‘My sister is up in town, Cousin,' Mary-Ann told me when I arrived at the Ferry Inn. ‘But I am at your disposal.'

We were alone in the parlour, with teacups, pot and caddy at the ready between us.

‘Thank you. I am about to inquest a gentleman who died on Thursday last at the Gamecock Inn. Mr John Allcroft of Gregson. Did you know him?'

‘No, Cousin. I never met him.'

‘You heard he had died?

‘Yes.'

‘And before that, had you heard of him?'

‘Yes, I heard my father speak of him.'

‘Your father knew him? That is what I have come here to ask you! You are quite sure?'

Mary-Ann's eyes stared at me without blinking.

‘No, I don't know that he knew him. He may have. But I heard him speak of Mr Allcroft.'

‘When was this?'

‘Quite recently.'

‘In what connection?'

‘It was about the voting. I believe it was a few days after we heard that there would be a vote. Dad said something like, “I hear Mr Allcroft of Gregson is vigorous in his action against these Whigs.” Whig Pigs is what he called them, if you will pardon the expression.'

I did so with a smile and asked, ‘Did your father say anything more about Mr Allcroft?'

‘Just that he was going to do as Mr Allcroft had done at Gregson and Hoghton, and get a gang together from here and Bamber Bridge. They were supposed to go across in a party and vote for the Tories, come election time. A full tally, he called it. I didn't take much notice at the time.'

‘I remember your sister saying something about this when we came here with your father's body. He used the precise word “tally”, did he?'

‘Yes.'

‘That is very interesting, isn't it?'

‘I don't know. Is it?'

‘The tally is the collective name for a group of voters who march together to the polling hall under a so-called tally captain. Now your father was correctly informed about Allcroft. He
had
gathered a tally under himself at Gregson and Hoghton. What is interesting to me is that your father was intending to do the same here.'

‘But he didn't.'

‘No, he was not given the chance.'

‘He would not have done it anyway.'

‘He talked about it.'

‘Talking isn't doing.'

‘Had he ever acted as a tally captain before – in the last parliamentary vote, when he was younger?'

‘I don't know. I was a small child.'

‘Do you know if he made recent contact with any fellow Tory supporters who might have joined his tally in this election?'

‘Cousin Titus, this tally of his was imaginary! I can't think why you are so interested in it. Are you trying to connect my father's accident in some way with what happened to Mr Allcroft?'

‘Well … I beg you to keep this to yourself, Mary-Ann. Discuss it with Grace, if you like, but no one else, if you please.'

She nodded.

‘Very well, I will tell you. There is a suspicion of poison in John Allcroft's death. And there is also a suspicion about your father's drowning. In spite of the jury verdict I now have reason to think there
may,
I say no more than that, have been someone else with him before he went into the river. And, if so, that same person
may
– with the same proviso – have meddled with Allcroft's plate of dinner.'

Mary-Ann stared, clapping her hands to her cheeks.

‘You mean you think our dad was pushed in?'

‘No, at this stage I don't. Only that eventually I may come round to thinking that, when I am further along this road.'

‘But who? And why?'

Before I replied – not that I
could
reply – hot water was brought in, and Mary-Ann prepared our tea. I took the opportunity to broach the second reason for my visit.

‘May I see your register of guests?'

She sent the serving girl out to get the book. I cleared the cups aside and opened it flat on the table. There was something here that I thought I remembered – or perhaps misremembered. I found the current page and then looked back to the guests of the previous week. I saw the most relevant two entries – about Destercore and his man. And then I looked above at the other names, and there they were, three, as I thought, that I had seen before:
Mr Chapman,
T. Wilson,
Richd. Gornall.
I put my finger on the middle name.

‘Wilson,' I said. ‘Tell me now. Is this by chance Thomas Wilson, apothecary, of Church Gate?'

‘Yes, Cousin, it would be.'

‘Now, that really is interesting.'

Mary-Ann shook her head.

‘Is it? Mr Wilson often stops here on a Sunday night, after he has been at his card party.'

‘His card party?'

‘Yes, at old Satterthwaite's. Every so many Sundays they have a game at Satterthwaite's cottage. Other Sundays it is at Porter's in town, I believe.'

‘When it is at Satterthwaite's does Wilson always stay here?'

‘That's his custom, because he always misses the last ferry. He's the worse for drink, most times, so we have a bed ready for him to fall into.'

‘What about these other two – Gornall and Chapman? Did they play cards also?'

‘No. I don't know Gornall, except that he's a farmer in Ribbleton. Chapman's the chandler at Penwortham. He was riding to Kendal and took a room to get the earliest ferry across.'

She rang a handbell and the girl reappeared.

‘Paula, will you send Toby in?'

She turned back to me.

‘A little business I must deal with.'

She got up and slid open a drawer in a side table, bringing out a watch.

‘My father's,' she said, showing it to me. ‘It has not run since it went into the water with him. Grace was to take it this morning but forgot. I am sending it now with Toby to see if it can be mended.'

I took the watch from her – a good, solid fob of old-fashioned appearance. I squinted at the face to read the maker's name:
Wm. Oldswick, Preston
– our own Nicholas's father.

‘He must have had this a few years.'

‘He got it when he was twenty-one, so he used to say.'

‘Here's an idea. Don't trouble Toby with this. Let me take it.'

So it was agreed but, as I left, another question occurred to me.

‘Do you know who were the other regular card players?'

‘No. But there must have been others, if they were playing four-handed cribbage. It wouldn't have made a game with just Satterthwaite, Wilson and Mr Destercore, would it?'

This brought me up short.

‘Mary-Ann, are you saying Destercore was there, at Satterthwaite's that Sunday night?'

‘Oh, yes, didn't I mention it? Wilson fell into conversation with Mr Destercore here at the inn, when he called earlier to secure his bed. He invited him down to Satterthwaite's but, being a stranger, Mr Destercore wasn't what you meant by a regular in the game.'

*   *   *

I trod a thoughtful lane back towards the ferry, with Uncle Egan's watch in my pocket and a bushel of new information in my head. I had drawn up a mental list of six witnesses whose evidence I thought the Allcroft inquest jury should hear: Mrs Fitzpatrick, her cook and kitchen boy, Luke Fidelis and the Satterthwaites, Isaac and Maggie. Now I considered adding a seventh – Thomas Wilson.

Having reached the Satterthwaite cottage, I let myself into the garden by the gate. Old Isaac was a considerable gardener. He had a mass of woodland bulbs growing beneath fruit trees that were themselves laden with blossom. It was a warm day and the air felt almost sticky – sweet with scent and the buzz of insects. I knocked on the cottage door, setting off one of the terriers inside, who scrabbled around behind the door, barking. But the old man did not appear. I peeped through the window, and could see the oak table at which the men had presumably played their cards, no doubt while jesting, smoking, drinking and talking politics. Isaac may have been a rat catcher, but he was well travelled and, in his way, a man of discrimination. I guessed it would have been port wine and not porter beer that they drank.

That Satterthwaite and Wilson were friendly was not a surprise. Both men had returned to Preston after spending long years away, and one was the other's customer in the supply of rat poison. They also happened to be opinionated supporters of the same political party, though I would have guessed that was not a question of two men thinking just alike, but of an alliance between different temperaments. Satterthwaite's Whiggism came out of his military past. He had seen more than enough slaughter, rape and mayhem to become chary of military adventuring, perhaps on grounds of pure humanity, or of not liking to see useful lives wasted. Wilson was first and always a businessman, who thought the accumulation of wealth was a man's main reason for being alive. As I had heard the night before, he supported Walpole's long peace because he saw the policy as good for trade and stability – and in the end for himself.

Destercore had sat at that table too, talking politics between hands, gathering news, compiling lists. Who were the other members of the card school? I was already prepared to wager they would not be Tories.

I made my way back to the ferry and during the crossing questioned Robert Battersby in case he knew anything about these card games, whose players he must have transported to Middleforth from time to time. He told me he couldn't tell me owt, but perhaps he simply wouldn't. I had offered him no money and there was a general assumption in town that Battersby's habitual surliness had a mercenary origin.

*   *   *

Oldswick put on a pair of spectacles and examined the timepiece.

‘This is an old one.'

‘It belonged to poor Antony Egan.'

‘Did it indeed? Went in the river with him, did it?'

‘Yes.'

He opened the back and looked closely around the works, with his eye no more than an inch away. He looked for as long as a minute without making any comment, then snapped the case shut and took off his spectacles.

‘There'd not be much problem if it were just water, but it's not. The case has taken a few knocks and there's damage inside. I'm surprised the watch glass is intact.'

‘Can you make it go again? His daughters are anxious to have it working.'

‘Oh, aye, we can make it go. We built the bugger, didn't we? We'll rebuild it if we have to, only it won't be a quick job.'

‘What shall I tell them you'll charge?'

‘Let's say three shillings, maybe three and six. If it looks like being more I can tell 'em by letter.'

I watched as he wrote out the receipt, and, though I can't say what association it was that prompted me, I suddenly had the idea.

‘You'll not have much time for the shop, with the election going on.'

‘No, it's madness.'

It was a very bright idea, or so I thought, and it concerned Destercore's lists.

‘When are you polling, yourself?'

‘Eh, they don't get to Friar Gate till Wednesday afternoon. My tally's due there at three – not that they'll keep to the timetable. It could be anytime after that.'

He handed me the receipt for the watch, and I tucked it into my pocketbook.

‘I heard you're acting as a tally captain.'

This was my bright idea: I had heard no such thing, but I had to test the theory. Oldswick sighed, as one burdened by responsibilities.

‘Oh, aye,' he said. ‘I've been waiting all my life to do it. In twenty-two it was my old father who acted for this end of Friar Gate, when I was still his apprentice. He died soon after. I never thought I'd have to wait nearly twenty year till my turn came around to captain the tally.'